Ecosystem Resilience Mitigates Temperature Impacts on Neonatal and Infant Mortality in India

Shaw, Subhojit

Background: India experiences severe climatic shocks including droughts, heat stress, and floods, which are expected to intensify a future warmer climate. Children are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of these shocks. In this context a resilient ecosystem can contribute to safeguarding children by providing reliable water sources, and supporting local food production. The present study investigates how ecosystem resilience affects children’s health and acts as a protective shield against climatic risks.

Data and Methods: This study used neonatal mortality (NMR) and infant mortality (IMR) from the National family health survey (NFHS-5). Satellite data are used to assess ecosystem resilience and temperature extremes. Univariate and bivariate statistical analysis were employed to examine the spatial association between high temperature, ecosystem resilience, and NMR and IMR. Further, a multivariate cox hazard model was used to estimate mortality risks associated with exposure to high temperatures and non-resilient ecosystems.

Result: The findings show low levels of ecosystem resilience in the northern and western part of India. Spatial autoregressive models reveal a significant association between higher temperatures and higher NMR and IMR (β: -1.79). Also, the resilience of local ecosystems plays an important role exerting a positive effect on children’s health, although we do not find any evidence that the resilience moderates the temperature impacts. The cox-proportional hazard models show elevated risks (HR: 1.002) for both neonatal and infant deaths with non-resilient ecosystems having the highest risks (HR: 1.217 for neonatal deaths and HR: 1.159 for infant deaths).

Conclusion: This study highlights the important role of environmental conditions and ecosystem resilience for child health. In-utero exposure to high temperatures has a greater impact on NMR than IMR and hence resilience has a limited protective effect on neonatal and infant deaths.